Many kinds of ashtrays are in use nowadays for smokers to tap ashes off cigarettes and throw butts of cigarettes therein, generally made of glass, china or plastics, which are always cleaned for repeated use. But they are easily broken by dropping on the ground by accident or carelessness. Plastic ones can endure, uneasily to break, but on the other hand, they are not biodegradable, to pollute the environment when discarded.
Ashtrays made of paper widely seen among those on market or disclosed in various patents previously acquired, but they mostly have no function of extinguished fires of still burning cigarette butts placed therein. Consequently, paper ashtrays are not so much in use, because they involve public harm caused by second-hand smoking and risk of fires.